The havoc that the drought is causing in Spain, such as the increase in food prices, "requires structural responses" and actions that "avoid" higher costs, explained today the third vice president and minister for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge in functions. Teresa Ribera has insisted on the importance of "continuing investing" to combat the effects of this "increasingly structural" situation. For this reason, the Government will allocate 11,839 million until 2027 to promote desalination and reuse, as well as efficiency in the use of the resource, through the improvement of pipelines and regulatory infrastructure.
Added to this endowment are 3,060 million from the Strategic Project for Economic Recovery and Transformation (PERTE), which will be dedicated to the digitalization of water. A measure that seeks to improve water management through new technologies and big data, as detailed by Ribera in the press conference after the Council of Ministers held this Tuesday.
In addition to presenting its roadmap in this matter, the Government has made public the data from the Drought Management Report, which shows that 14.6% of the Spanish territory is in emergency and 27.4% is on alert due to water scarcity. The study concludes that climate change is causing increasingly frequent and intense droughts in Spain, such as this hydrological year, which has caused global average precipitation to be 17% below the normal value in relation to the reference period. 1991-2020.
Apart from the structural investment planned by the Government, the minister has assured that it is also necessary to invest in cases in which an immediate reaction is needed to support citizens "who see their access to water concession volumes for irrigation restricted." , for example by exempting the payment of fees and tariffs, activating emergency payments, guaranteeing the supply of the population or subsidizing the price of desalinated water.
He has also highlighted the importance of the application this year of the special drought plans, which has made it possible to guarantee supply for the entire population, minimize the impact on productive sectors and guarantee the maintenance of ecosystems.
